**1. Introduction**

Post-modern society is viewed nowadays as a technologized society, where the great solutions to human problems can be solved by the progress of technology in economics from classical industry to communications. In this regard, nanotechnology was viewed from the beginning as the manipulation of matter at atomic, molecular and supramolecular scale leaved the established field of microfabrication, semiconductor physics, energy storage to extended surface science, organic chemistry and molecular biology applications. Nanotechnology presents the ability to create new materials with dimensions on the nanoscale together with a large range of applications in new domains as nanomedicine, nanoelectronics or biomaterials. From this point of view, in the last years nanotechnology is called to play an important part in the global food production, food security and food safety in the sense that the use of nanoscale micronutrients conduced to suppressing crop disease and the relationship between nutritional status and plant diseases are

investigated. The large use of nanotechnology raises the problem of the toxicity of the new materials involved and their use in economics, this problem is associated with a poor legislation in the field regarding accidental release, atmospheric deposition, deliberate disposal in the environmental as pesticides, remediators, including the use of soil amendments containing nanomaterials (manuers, sludge) or water contamination for irrigation. In spite of this toxicological concern, the agriculturenanotechnology is viewed as a solution, as a technological advancement in order to use efficiently the natural agriculture resources, i.e. water, nutrients or chemicals while farming. Besides the possible benefits of enhancing the crop yield, nanotechnology presents itself that having the ability to maximize the benefits of natural agriculture resources, through efficient products in the form of pesticides for pest and disease management and for sensors that monitors the soil quality and plant health, in the other words to solve a problem of environmental pollution. In this regard, over the last decade an important number of patents have been proposed and different products on the market that incorporated nanomaterials have been used in agricultural practice, e.g., nanopesticides, nanofertilizers or nanosensors.

As a general aspect, of world-wide society characterized by a constantly growing of population number, there exists the most important challenge that of higher agriculture yields. The aim of application of nanomaterials in agriculture is to reduce the applied amount of plan protection products, to minimize nutrient losses in fertilization and increased the yields through an optimized nutrient management. Classical active substances used nowadays can be lost during application due to different processes as runoff, evaporation, photolysis, and hydrolysis or microorganisms degradation. Different nanomaterials used as additives are characterized by large surface area and as a consequence they are appropriate to sorption process minimizing in this way the losses by reducing runoff and decreasing releases kinetics. Special designed nanoparticles can protect the active ingredients from photodegradation or can enhance uptake into leaves and other parts of the plant. Nanomaterials characteristics conduced to the substitution hazardous organic solvents present in some plant protection products and can reduce the application rates through their enhanced reactivity. As it was expressed before, despite of these positive impacts some nanomaterials have properties that classified them as potentially hazardous. The use of nanomaterials in agriculture and especially in plant protection and fertilization may pose unpredictable risks due to the fact that their application is accompanied by an intentional input of nanomaterials in the environment. In this regard, the human and environmental exposure due to nanomaterial residues in crops and soil might increase due to bioaccumulation of nanomaterials in the environment and food chain [1]. The requirements of a growing food market implied the existence of an urgent demand for products containing nanomaterials due to a process of regulation. At the beginning of twenty-first century the most popular agriculture application of nanotechnology is focused on plant protection and fertilization. It is stated [2] that higher plants have an ability to develop mechanisms to perform satisfactory under hard atmospheric and soil conditions. In order to help plants growth one of the novel methods is the use of nanomaterials that possesses physicochemical characteristics to enhance the metabolism of plants. In this view, the fertilization that used nanotechnology can amplify the plant production by delivering the micronutrients on request and control the development of plants. Nanomaterials are capable to penetrate into cells of herbs, they can carry DNA and other chemical compounds in the cells [3], extending the possibility in plant biotechnology to target special gene manipulation.

One of the most serious and important problems of agri-nanotechnology is the absence of analytical methods to quantify the concentration of nanomaterials in water, soil and air, in order to define an exposure limit. Part of difficulties is related

**53**

*Application of Nanotechnology Solutions in Plants Fertilization*

to extraction and separation from soil matrix and interfering constituents, and the presence of very low concentrations, more over for metallic nanomaterials there exist different natural constituents as counterparts. However, the analysis techniques indicates possibility to extract these low concentrations by processes as X-ray based techniques, chemothermal oxidation, thermogravimetry or mass spectrometry, these techniques been used generally coupled on a measurement line. The evaluation risk of organic compounds used in plants protection products, namely the evaluation of persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity is based on specific end points and parameters obtained from laboratory and field experiments. For instance, the persistence is evaluated considering the dissipation of 50% of initial concentration, bioaccumulation properties are measured of octanol-water partition coefficient and the evaluation of toxicity is based on aquatic toxicity namely the

In the agri-nanotechnology the enhanced yield is related to the potential nutritional value of nanomaterials, especially for the essential micronutrients necessary for host defense. The permanent search for new solutions to global food problem conduced to the application of nanotechnology to enhance the efficiency and

The increase requirement of global food production is related nowadays with the necessity of application new technology for enhancing crop yield in order to satisfy the global food security. As a modern trend in this view, the application of nanotechnology solutions can bring a response to grave problem of different deficiencies in human population as deficiencies of iron, zinc, selenium, calcium, phosphorus or vitamin A. The nanotechnology can offer solutions as micronutrients in agriculture in order to optimize the deficient presence of these substances in soil, by their use in fertilization. Besides the possible studied benefits, it is stated [1] that the nanomaterials use in agriculture may pose unforeseeable risks due to the intentional input of nanomaterials in the environment that can led to human exposure related to bioaccumulation in crops and soil and as a consequence in the food chain. The great challenge of modern agriculture related to the use of nanotechnology is to regulate the products with the nano content in the condition where the nanomaterials pose problems to the regulatory bodies and on the other hand there is a lack of knowledge to the possible effect on the plant growth, i.e. to the genetics of plants. The possible use of nanomaterials in agriculture is a new nanotechnology solution under development now for a dozen years [4, 5] as studies regarding the use of nanoscale nutrients (metals, metal oxides, carbon) to suppress crop diseases [6]. In this view, the problem of agriculture in managing the crop disease is related to different attempts as genetic breeding, new pesticides products or new eradication protocols with the effect of the development of host plant resistance. Genetically modified plants raises different ethical problems related to the effect to

the metabolism of human body, and this is a serious public concern.

A possible alternative for suppressing crop disease is the managing of plant nutrition statue and in this perspective the major limitation is that different crops have different nutrients requirements and the nutrient interacts with the level of plant disease in variable ways. As an example, the micronutrients are critical in the defense against crop disease where tissue infection induced reactions that conduced to the production of inhibitory secondary metabolites. These metabolites are generally generated by enzymes that requires activation by micronutrients cofactors, e.g. Mn, Cu and Zn as activating host defense enzymes i.e. phenylalanine or ammonia

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91240*

intrinsic toxicity of the compounds.

sustainability of agriculture practice.

**2. Nanomaterials in plant growth**

### *Application of Nanotechnology Solutions in Plants Fertilization DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91240*

*Urban Horticulture - Necessity of the Future*

investigated. The large use of nanotechnology raises the problem of the toxicity of the new materials involved and their use in economics, this problem is associated with a poor legislation in the field regarding accidental release, atmospheric deposition, deliberate disposal in the environmental as pesticides, remediators, including the use of soil amendments containing nanomaterials (manuers, sludge) or water contamination for irrigation. In spite of this toxicological concern, the agriculturenanotechnology is viewed as a solution, as a technological advancement in order to use efficiently the natural agriculture resources, i.e. water, nutrients or chemicals while farming. Besides the possible benefits of enhancing the crop yield, nanotechnology presents itself that having the ability to maximize the benefits of natural agriculture resources, through efficient products in the form of pesticides for pest and disease management and for sensors that monitors the soil quality and plant health, in the other words to solve a problem of environmental pollution. In this regard, over the last decade an important number of patents have been proposed and different products on the market that incorporated nanomaterials have been used in agricultural practice, e.g., nanopesticides, nanofertilizers or nanosensors. As a general aspect, of world-wide society characterized by a constantly growing of population number, there exists the most important challenge that of higher agriculture yields. The aim of application of nanomaterials in agriculture is to reduce the applied amount of plan protection products, to minimize nutrient losses in fertilization and increased the yields through an optimized nutrient management. Classical active substances used nowadays can be lost during application due to different processes as runoff, evaporation, photolysis, and hydrolysis or microorganisms degradation. Different nanomaterials used as additives are characterized by large surface area and as a consequence they are appropriate to sorption process minimizing in this way the losses by reducing runoff and decreasing releases kinetics. Special designed nanoparticles can protect the active ingredients from photodegradation or can enhance uptake into leaves and other parts of the plant. Nanomaterials characteristics conduced to the substitution hazardous organic solvents present in some plant protection products and can reduce the application rates through their enhanced reactivity. As it was expressed before, despite of these positive impacts some nanomaterials have properties that classified them as potentially hazardous. The use of nanomaterials in agriculture and especially in plant protection and fertilization may pose unpredictable risks due to the fact that their application is accompanied by an intentional input of nanomaterials in the environment. In this regard, the human and environmental exposure due to nanomaterial residues in crops and soil might increase due to bioaccumulation of nanomaterials in the environment and food chain [1]. The requirements of a growing food market implied the existence of an urgent demand for products containing nanomaterials due to a process of regulation. At the beginning of twenty-first century the most popular agriculture application of nanotechnology is focused on plant protection and fertilization. It is stated [2] that higher plants have an ability to develop mechanisms to perform satisfactory under hard atmospheric and soil conditions. In order to help plants growth one of the novel methods is the use of nanomaterials that possesses physicochemical characteristics to enhance the metabolism of plants. In this view, the fertilization that used nanotechnology can amplify the plant production by delivering the micronutrients on request and control the development of plants. Nanomaterials are capable to penetrate into cells of herbs, they can carry DNA and other chemical compounds in the cells [3], extending the possibility in

**52**

plant biotechnology to target special gene manipulation.

One of the most serious and important problems of agri-nanotechnology is the absence of analytical methods to quantify the concentration of nanomaterials in water, soil and air, in order to define an exposure limit. Part of difficulties is related to extraction and separation from soil matrix and interfering constituents, and the presence of very low concentrations, more over for metallic nanomaterials there exist different natural constituents as counterparts. However, the analysis techniques indicates possibility to extract these low concentrations by processes as X-ray based techniques, chemothermal oxidation, thermogravimetry or mass spectrometry, these techniques been used generally coupled on a measurement line. The evaluation risk of organic compounds used in plants protection products, namely the evaluation of persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity is based on specific end points and parameters obtained from laboratory and field experiments. For instance, the persistence is evaluated considering the dissipation of 50% of initial concentration, bioaccumulation properties are measured of octanol-water partition coefficient and the evaluation of toxicity is based on aquatic toxicity namely the intrinsic toxicity of the compounds.

In the agri-nanotechnology the enhanced yield is related to the potential nutritional value of nanomaterials, especially for the essential micronutrients necessary for host defense. The permanent search for new solutions to global food problem conduced to the application of nanotechnology to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of agriculture practice.
